Reinventing Semiotics: an interview with Ione Bentz

Abstract

With a Master’s degree in Linguistics from 1974 (PUCRS) and a PhD from 1980 (Universidade de São Paulo), Ione Betnz’s formation is strictly connected with the arrival of the linguistic and semiotic studies in Brazil and also with its further development as a fertile research field for communication and cultural problems. Emeritus professor from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul and a part of the Postgraduate Program of Communication Sciences at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, nowadays Ione works as professor and researcher in the Postgraduate Program of Design at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos. In this interview, Ione discusses the particularities of Semiotics as a research field in the country, highlighting its potentialities as an epistemic and heuristic instrument, but also its disciplinary and institutional difficulties for the last 40 years.